If you want to attack Obama...

...attack him for rather daftly saying he'd support off-shore drilling. I have no idea why he thinks this will help him. I know what the defense will be--the press taking his statement out of context. But dude, you know the game. The fact that someone punched you in the face, doesn't excuse you not having your guard up. Furthermore, it looks pretty in context to me. You shouldn't even hint at something like this if you're not serious. I like the nuance and thoughtfulness of Obama, but he has to be careful not to muddy his message. I guess I could be wrong, but this just looks dumb to me. It's like a classic Al Gore presidential move--I'm thinking Elian Gonzalez--in which you move just enough to piss your base, but not enough to reach folks who are in your opponents column.

UPDATE: As always, my highly intelligent commenters round out this post, pointing to the fine print. FWIW I actually wrote this last night and set it to post today--since I'd be indisposed (My Pops got married. Congratz Dad.) So I missed a lot of the clarifying narrative. But to be clear, I don't so much worry about Obama embracing comprimise, as a matter of policy, as I worry about it as electoral strategy. In other words, I'm concerned about Obama giving fuel to the whole flip-flopper label. An unfair charge, in most cases, it's still quite potent.